French Revolution

During the French Revolution (1789-1799) democracy and republicanism overthrew the absolute monarchy in France, and the French portion of the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. While France would oscillate among republic, empire, and monarchy for 75 years after the First Republic fell to a coup d'état by Napoleon Bonaparte, the revolution nonetheless spelled a definitive end to the ancien régime, and eclipses both subsequent revolutions in France in the popular imagination. It is widely seen as a major turning point in continental European history, from the age of absolutism to that of the citizenry, and even of the masses, as the dominant political force.

Further Reading

• William Doyle: Oxford history of the French Revolution. 2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-19-925298-X
• William Doyle: Origins of the French Revolution. 3rd ed.; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-19-873175-2 ISBN 0-19-873174-4 (pbk)
• Chronicle of the French Revolution 1788-1799. London: Longman, and, Chronicle Communications, 1989 ISBN 0-582051-94-0
• The English-language edition of the collaborative work Chronique de la Révolution 1788-1799 (Paris: Larousse, 1988 ;ISBN 2-03-503250-4), produced under the direction of Jean Favier and others.
• François Furet: La révolution en debat Paris: Gallimard, 1999 ISBN 2-07-040784-5
• a short but important book with a series of articles on the historiography of the revolution.
• Peter McPhee: The French Revolution, 1789-1799. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-19-924414-6
• a short but up-to-date and useful book which covers many areas including feminism and environment etc.
• Timothy Tackett: Becoming a Revolutionary: the deputies of the French National Assembly and the emergence of a revolutionary culture (1789-1790). Princeton, N.J. ; Chichester : Princeton University Press, c1996 ISBN 0-691-04384-1
• the most thorough research on the deputies of the Estates General and the National Assembly.